Yesterday I posted my review of the book Voices of the Lost and Found by Dorene O’Brien. (If you haven’t entered to win the book yet, make sure you do!) Today I have the interview with Dorene, as promised. If you’re a writer, reading these interviews with the authors can really give you a good inside look on what writing takes.

(e): Dorene, your character voices are very realistic and different from one another. It’s as if you “borrowed” a real person and recorded all their speech nuances. How do you go about developing them?

DO: When a character begins to take shape in my head I allow him or her to take up residence there for a while, and before long that character will speak to me. What is said is not as important as how it’s said–the sound of the voice, the dialect, the inflection. Once I can hear the voice in my mind’s ear everything else is easy; then I can have “conversations” with the character. I have a standing joke that on the first day of creative writing workshops I ask students if they hear voices in their heads. Half the class eagerly nods and the other half drops. But I stand by that: Hearing voices is a good thing.

(e): I sure heard voices in my head while I was reading your book! Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

DO: I’m curious about everything–graffiti art, string theory, weathervanes–and my research usually turns up some fascinating information that I can use as “background” material. My favorite stories are those that both entertain and educate, so I try to “quietly” do that in mine. “Way Past Taggin’” is a story about a young urban graffiti artist who is being harassed to join a gang–that’s the story’s central conflict. But while wondering what he will do and worrying about his sick grandmother, readers are being shown how piecing and tagging work and learning about pecking order on the street. Reading also inspires me to write.

(e): “Way Past Taggin’” was actually one of my favorites, and that one had a very unexpected ending. I’m always curious as to whether or not an author knows, when heading into a story, how it will turn out. Are you a writer who plans ahead, or do you like to let the protagonist show you the way?

DO: Once in a while I know how a story will end even before I start, but typically I allow the characters and the plot to evolve as I write. If I experience no moments of surprise in the writing I don’t know that my readers can experience them in the reading. At any rate, those unexpected events are always the most perfect–I’ve never excised one. In fact, I’ve rewritten stories just to accommodate them. I have several unpublished stories, and I think they remain unpublished because they’re too “controlled.” I think I’ve plotted the spontaneity right out of them

(e): Any plans for a full novel? Another short story collection?

DO: I’m currently writing a novel about fossil hunters in Ethiopia which asks and explores some pretty big questions about evolution, religion, hubris in scientific professions and gender bias. The protagonist, a female paleoanthropologist on extended excavations in Africa, becomes estranged from her husband and her runaway son, so she seeks not only the oldest human fossil but her son as well as some sort of redemption. Are all-encompassing careers worth the sacrifice they impose? How do scientists who have not fallen prey to the type of evidence-twisting that garners large grants compete in a field rife with graft, collusion and dishonesty? Can a fossil hunter reconcile the creationist view of her mother and the evolutionist view of her father to explore human origins through an original perspective? Will her family ultimately reunite or become torn apart by her discovery? My inspiration for the book was my curiosity about our origins. This is a fundamental question about which people–or at least people who are not religious zealots–seem largely unconcerned. My challenge has been to simplify and translate the utterly fascinating scientific and philosophical perspectives into an accessible and compelling story.

(e): Thanks so much for the interview, Dorene. Please let us know when your novel is out, and all the best to you!

Last week I reviewed Joe Borri’s short story collection entitled Eight Dogs Named Jack. Due to the fantastic response in that review and giveaway, I have a special follow-up interview with the author.

(e): I recently reviewed your book, and I loved it. Could you give us your description of Eight Dogs Named Jack?

JB: First of all, thank you so much for giving my work some exposure. I really appreciate that and the great interest shown on your blog. I would describe the book as an attempt to entertain an audience while leaving behind the footprints I’ve walked, from Detroit and the northern part of the state. As an avid lover of movies, stories and jokes, I’ve always been fascinated by the ability to keep an audience engaged while trying to tell a multi-layered story. I try to take what I’ve gleaned from all those stories , combine it with what I’ve dreamt and what I’ve experienced and convey it in a story. Being an artist, I think there’s an inherent want to describe many things and create visuals. I sometimes fear I overwrite or over-describe, but it’s who I am.

(e): There is great variation in the characters, from moral upright people to murderous criminals and everything in between. Where do you get your inspiration for such realistic characters?

JB: I always tell people I’m the Italian son of a Detroit cop who married a Sicilian girl whose father hated Detroit cops. That’s pretty close. I’ve always had a sick memory, remembering things in great detail from when I was 2, 3 years old. It’s kind of scary. So I always wondered why all these “sticky” memories were there. All of it sticks in my head and comes out into these amalgams of character. My father is a tremendous storyteller. Some are based on him, the more heroic, honorable ones (he’s Lou in Honest John). Many are mixtures of my wife’s uncles or cousins, my father-in-law. Some are based on hearsay; a guy knew a guy who knew a guy, that kind of thing. A lot of it is just mashing little things I’ve experienced and having some fun. It’s amazing what you can do by just observing. Part of it’s the fact that I wrote from 10 pm until 2 or 3 am. Your mind wanders pretty freely when you’re that sleep-deprived.

(e): I finished reading your book about a week ago, and many of those characters are still walking around with me, Hopper and Roman in particular. From a writer’s viewpoint, what do you think it takes to make a character memorable?

JB: I try to remember the hero myth. The presence of heroes in stories are necessary in some way or another. I’m a big Joseph Campbell fan, so much so that I quoted him in the epigraphs, which I encourage the readers to pay attention to. For me it’s relying only on their physical attributes. Believe me, I’m a raw writer at best, but I’ve tried not to rely on telling the reader too much, instead trying to show, use inference to flesh out the character, the way a filmmaker might do. I think Hopper for instance, is a good example. You see this young black kid’s almost savant-like ability on a trick bike, so you realize he’s special. There’s a lot of interior thought, and through a couple sparse comments on his physical appearance, an image of who he is sprouts, or at least I hope it does.

Dialogue certainly is huge in my opinion. Inflection, the choice of words. Are they polite or profane. I struggled with how much cursing to use in the dialogue because many of these characters are surface-toughs. That’s the talk I remember, that I experienced. I feel it would be disingenuous to the reader to water it down. Names, too. Sherman Armbrewster, the huge contractor in I’m From Detroit, was meant to evoke a tank-like man (Sherman tank) and an armbuster, hence his surname. The hero in that story, Roman Materra, was a mix of my wife’s uncle and movie heroes. The extra R in Materra to evoke terror. He’s kind of an aging warrior, a real man’s man. He’s in three of the stories and mentioned in a couple others.

(e): Why did you decide to include the illustrations?

JB: As I said, it’s who I am. At one point I thought, “I don’t want it to take away from the writing.” Then I thought, “Maybe drawings would pull it all together.” And for me, it felt like a way to create a pulpy, noir look, a call back to illustrated fiction. Now I’m glad I did it. But I doubt I’d do it again. Maybe the cover of my next book, if I’m fortunate enough to get it sold.

(e): That leads me to my last question; what are you working on next?

JB: I’m in the second draft of The Claw, a novel I started before selling Eight Dogs. It’s a dark humor look at our compulsion to collect things.

Thank you very much for the interview, Joe!  It’s been great having you as a guest here, and I wish you all the best with Eight Dogs Named Jack, as well as your upcoming novel.  Please let us know when the new book hits the shelves.  Personally, I can’t wait.

(I wonder if The Claw will mention anything about people who compulsively collect books?  That would make this girl nervous.  If I did that.  Which I don’t.)